Synopses & Reviews
One of the great classics of American fiction reissued as it was originally written.
Winner of the 1947 Pulitzer Prize, All the King's Men is one of the most famous and widely read works in American fiction. Its original publication by Harcourt catapulted author Robert Penn Warren to fame and made the novel a bestseller for many seasons. Set in the 1930s, it traces the rise and fall of demagogue Willie Talos, a fictional Southern politician who resembles the real-life Huey "Kingfish" Long of Louisiana. Talos begins his career as an idealistic man of the people, but he soon becomes corrupted by success, caught between dreams of service and a lust for power. All the King's Men is as relevant today as it was fifty years ago.
In a momentous publishing event, Robert Penn Warren's masterpiece has been restored and reintroduced by literary scholar Noel Polk, whose work on the texts of William Faulkner has proved so important to American literature. Polk presents the novel as it was originally written, and without the deletions required by its original editors. The result restores Warren's complexity and subtlety to an already near-perfect work, charging the characters with an energy and a more tangled web of relationships than previously was available. All the King's Men is a landmark in letters. This new edition brings it fully to life.
"The publication of a new, corrected edition of All the King's Men is welcome
news for all who care about American literature. Robert Penn Warren's
prize-winning novel has remained a classic since its publication more than half
a century ago. Editor Noel Polk has studied the manuscript and all other
available versions of Warren's finest novels, eliminating errors and retrieving deleted material. The result has been to enrich the character of narrator
Jack Burden and his protagonist, Willie Talos, in this story of tumultuous Louisiana politics which also has implications for morals and manners in the modern world." -Joseph Blotner, author of Robert Penn Warren: A Biography
Review
PRAISE FOR THE RESTORED EDITION OF
ALL THE KING'S MEN"To read it in this new edition is to be struck again by its raw power, its urgency and relevance."--New Orleans Times-Picayune
"The original editors adjusted the novel to the tastes and styles of the time, but now we can read it as it was written. The result is a more complicated and emotionally charged--and longer--story."--Chicago Tribune
Review
PRAISE FOR ALL THE KING'S MEN
"Over the course of more than two centuries of vivid political history, there is perhaps only one full-blooded American novel of politics that plunges deep into the hearts of its characters and therefore into the hearts of its readers, thus rising to the top ranks of American fiction. That is Robert Penn Warren's lush All the King's Men."
- L O S A N G E L E S T I M E S B O O K R E V I E W
"It's a measure of the enduring worth of All the King's Men that Willie Stark has entered our collective literary consciousness, in the company of Captain Ahab, Huck Finn, Jay Gatsby, Holden Caulfield, Rabbit Angstrom, and very few others."
- J O Y C E C A R O L O A T E S , T H E N E W Y O R K R E V I E W O F B O O K S
Synopsis
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this classic book is generally regarded as the finest novel ever written on american politics. It describes the career of Willie Stark, a back-country lawyer whose idealism is overcome by his lust for power. New Foreword by Joseph Blotner for this fiftieth anniversary edition.
Synopsis
Winner of the 1947 Pulitzer Prize,
All the King's Men is one of the most famous and widely read works in American fiction. It traces the rise and fall of demagogue Willie Talos, a fictional Southern politician who resembles the real-life Huey "Kingfish" Long of Louisiana. Talos begins his career as an idealistic man of the people, but he soon becomes corrupted by success and caught in a lust for power.
All the King's Men is as relevant today as it was fifty years ago.
Robert Penn Warren's masterpiece has been restored by literary scholar Noel Polk, whose work on the texts of William Faulkner has proved so important to American literature. Polk presents the novel as it was originally written, revealing even greater complexity and subtlety of character. All the King's Men is a landmark in letters.
Synopsis
Set in the 1930s, this Pulitzer Prizewinning novel traces the rise and fall of Willie Stark, who resembles the real-life Huey Kingfish” Long of Louisiana. Stark begins his political career as an idealistic man of the people but soon becomes corrupted by success. Generally considered the finest novel ever written on American politics,
All the Kings Men is a literary classic.
SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING
SEAN PENN
JUDE LAW
KATE WINSLET
JAMES GANDOLFINI
MARK RUFFALO
PATRICIA CLARKSON
and
ANTHONY HOPKINS
Synopsis
"Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Robert Penn Warren's tale of ambition and power set in the Depression-era South is widely considered the finest novel ever written about American politics.
All the King's Men traces the rise and fall of demagogue Willie Stark, a fictional character loosely based on Governor Huey ""Kingfish"" Long of Louisiana. Stark begins his political career as an idealistic man of the people but soon becomes corrupted by success and caught between dreams of service and an insatiable lust for power, culminating in a novel that Sinclair Lewis pronounced, on the book's release in 1946, “one of our few national galleries of character."
Synopsis
When
All the King's Men was first published in 1946, Sinclair Lewis pronounced it "massive, impressive...one of our few national galleries of character." Diana Trilling, reviewing it for the
Nation, wrote, "For sheer virtuosity, for the sustained drive of its prose, for the speed and the evenness of its pacing, for its precision of language...I doubt indeed whether it can be matched in American fiction."
The Washington Post declared, "If the game of naming the Great American Novel is still being played anywhere, Warren's
All the King's Men would easily make the final rounds." Set in the 1930s, this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel traces the rise and fall of demagogue Willie Stark, a fictional character who resembles the real-life Huey "Kingfish" Long of Louisiana. Stark begins his political career as an idealistic man of the people but soon becomes corrupted by success and caught between dreams of service and an insatiable lust for power. As relevant today as it was more than fifty years ago,
All the King's Men is one of the classics of American literature.
About the Author
Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989) won three Pulitzer Prizes, the National Book Award, the National Medal for Literature, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1986 he was named the country's first poet laureate.